The F-4J UK, probably a premium you have heard of once or twice, something that even at 12.0 air rb you don’t see much and when you do, you probably will target it as it’s basically a free kill. For some backstory I bought the plane for around 30 dollars back in 2023. At this point in time, it was not the best vehicle, but it was not terrible, though the F4S was better and at the same br, Ill come back to this in a moment. For armament you get four okay, sparrows, they have no range, but are good in headons. Along with that you have a piss poor radar that most of the time can barely track anything if it is flying remotely close to the ground. For close range you get four aim 9 gs which are very mid, one flair and they are most likely gone, along with having to take a gun pod since you don’t get an internal gun. From my experience you are able to bomb 1-2 bases without sacraficing missiles which is nice. Here is the fun part, it is placed at battle rating 12.0 as it has since I bought it 3 years ago. What are the other options for 12.0? The F4S also at 12.0 in the US tech tree, gets better radar missiles, better ir missiles, better flight performance, better radar, and a helmet mounted sight. Mirage F1C, which gets meh radar missiles, decent radar, amazing ir missiles, and an amazing amount of counter measures, along with a good flight performance. I have played both of those planes a decent amount, and I can 100% say they are an absurd amount better than the UK. I suffered through grinding with it all the way up to rank 7 and now im tired of how terrible it is, you get out ranged, out sped, and out menurvered in almost every engagement. Let’s not even speak about the uptiers, if you think that the UK should face the F2A you are insane and wrong, having played that aircraft for almost 500 matches, its is better in every way, but yet you can still face eachother. I propose Gaijin moves the br down to at least 11.7 maybe even 11.3, since I would much rather player the F4E than the F-4J(UK) at this point.
it wouldn’t be so bad if it got aim9L, among other things such as more countermeasures
give it all the countermeasures (should get the under wing ones from FG2. give it 9L and supertemp and move to 12.3
FG1 could go down to 11.7 easily. give FG2 9L and keep at 12.0
I feel it would be easier to move it down than give it new weapons or more counter measures, does’t matter if you give it more flares and chaff your still gonna get dogged on by an f2A.
You’re not going to believe this, but Gaijin won’t give this aircraft the AIM-9Ls it desperately needs to stay competitive at 12.0 because they think it would make the aircraft too effective.
If it received AIM-9Ls and the better Skyflash SuperTEMP missiles, they would move it up to 12.3, where it would then have to fight aircraft like the Su-30 in a complete uptier.
In my opinion, giving this aircraft AIM-9Ls at 12.0 would not make it broken. The AIM-9L isn’t what it used to be, and I went into much more detail about this in another post, including several ways the aircraft could be improved alongside the FGR.2.
The British Phantoms have been completely forgotten about and are seriously struggling in the current meta. The Tornado ADV sits at the same BR while already having the missiles that the F-4J(UK) and FGR.2 should have.
At the very least, these aircraft need to be looked at again.
The sad thing is it won’t, I really want it to be buffed, since I would like to finish the British tech tree without tearing my hair out, or buying another overpriced premium.
id rather it get a more accurate loadout and stay pretty much where it is than the lazier move-it-down approach
but again in an uptier your getting mopped, no matter if you have 9Ls or not.
thats an issue with hornets and everything else being too low and compressed.
moving the F-4J and F-4K down would just compress lower BRs without fixing any gripes
honestly I feel like the F-4E is better even just in general, even though its at 11.3
worse radar but honestly yea. the j/k radar isnt very good either
TL;DR: Top tier needs to be higher than 15.0 and almost everything >12.0 needs to go up in BR.
Among the obvious; BRs being too compressed and missing munitions, the UK just tends to get one of the shortest ends of the stick between 8.7 and 14.3/7…
There are some good planes, like the GR3 or the TornadoF3 CSP, but those are the outliers. Getting some aircraft that are only somewhat useable because they get better ordinance than everyone else at their br doesn’t hold up well when you constantly get uptiers.
Probably the worst offender is the Jaguar GR1A, which is a full BR step higher than the GR1 because it gets flares… (And not even any strike ordinance stock, for a 10.7 strike fighter)